'Your life is over, bitch'

This story is publishing nearly seven years after the first domestic violence allegations against former MLB star Mike Clevinger became public. Pursuing this story as a freelance journalist forced me to confront the myriad struggles that come when telling complex stories about allegations of violence against women, especially when they involve alleged and so-called “imperfect victims." Fortunately, eyeblack’s partnership with beehiiv’s Media Collective further empowers our publication to lean into these stories and embrace their complications.

I’m thrilled to announce I’ve joined this program. I hope you will continue reading, sharing, and investing to ensure the work continues. - BWD

In 2015, Major League Baseball and the players union created its Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy. Since then, only two players probed under the league’s policy have evaded suspension. This February, the Pittsburgh Pirates gave one of those players a chance to make the team.

Once a heralded pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians, the Pirates signed Mike Clevinger to a minor league contract¹ and gave the veteran a long look with the big league spring training roster. It is Clevinger’s third deal since MLB’s investigation, a process which ran from July 2022 to March 2023, became public knowledge.

The public learned of the investigation in January 2023 when Olivia Finestead, Clevinger’s former fiancée and mother of his youngest child, began accusing him of domestic violence and child abuse on social media. Finestead claimed Clevinger strangled her before locking her and their child out of their home. She shared photos of bruises on her pregnant stomach to her Instagram, which she said came the pitcher throwing an iPad. She backed up her experience with alleged screenshots of conversations with other women who said Clevinger assaulted and harassed them.

Clevinger’s attorney, Tina Miller, told eyeblack that “any portrayal of Mr. Clevinger as an abuser is demonstrably false and inaccurate” and referred to MLB’s “exhaustive” investigation “that imposed no discipline.” Miller pointed eyeblack to Clevinger’s restraining order petition, where the pitcher claimed that Finestead stalked and harassed him and the mother of his two older children. The petitions filed by Clevinger and his other co-parent, which eyeblack obtained, referenced hundreds of texts Finestead sent from multiple numbers. In August 2023, the court granted both of them 15-year restraining orders. “The court record tells the accurate story — I encourage anyone seeking the truth to read it,” Miller stated.²

When MLB announced on March 5, 2023 that it would not discipline Clevinger, the commissioner’s office called the decision final “barring the receipt of any new information or evidence.” But, Finestead claims Clevinger continued abusing her. And that MLB failed to keep its word.

Finestead says she told an MLB investigator that not only did Clevinger harass her a month after the investigation closed, but that she possessed footage of the pitcher threatening her life ³ an hour before he started an April 19 game for the Chicago White Sox. She told MLB that she reported the harassment to the police. She insists that the misconduct she captured was consistent with patterns of alleged violence and harassment women have accused Clevinger of during every stop of his MLB career. Yet, despite informing the league about her recording and other alleged incidents of Clevinger of violating the league’s domestic violence policy, MLB didn’t reopen its investigation.

CW: The video contains profane and threatening language.

Clevinger made his debut with the White Sox in April 2023, a month after MLB cleared him to play. During an April 14 game against the Baltimore Orioles, Clevinger used Kanye West’s hit song “Gold Digger” as his warm-up music and shut down a reporter’s question about his song choice.⁴

Like many fans, Finestead saw Clevinger’s unexplained use of “Gold Digger” as a dig against her. But she also says the scene was a public manifestation of the pitcher’s ongoing private harassment.

On April 12—two days before the “Gold Digger” start and the same day Clevinger requested a restraining order—Finestead said an anonymous Instagram account with the handle @texbootslove⁵ started antagonizing her. “Shut the absolute fuck up you dumbass cunt,” wrote the account in direct messages Finestead posted to social media. In another: “Congrats! No one believed you! Dumbass bitch.”

The account referenced personal details about Finestead’s location and family. “Let me know what happens in your life the next 24 hours,” wrote @texbootslove, promising a visit from the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) and naming Williamson County, where she lived with her one-year-old child. The anonymous messenger also told her to get ready to be tested for drug use: “reason 1 to lose your child!” 

Finestead says her week played out exactly as @texbootslove predicted: a DCS caseworker arrived at her Williamson County, Tennessee apartment and required her to take a drug test, which she said she passed.⁶

Concurrently, Finestead said she received a barrage of calls from a blocked number her iPhone labeled as “No Caller ID.” She posted screenshots of her phone’s call log on social media and identified it as Clevinger. On April 19, Finestead told eyeblack she finally answered the caller. The voice she said she heard was unmistakably Clevinger’s, and he was telling her to kill herself. She said she grabbed her iPad to record what she could.

During Finestead’s first clip, a male voice tells her she’s a “drug-addict” and “fucking prostitute,” and warns her that he was “coming for” her child, identifying the child Clevinger fathered by name.⁷

“I’ve never hurt you,” the caller claims before declaring: “Your life is over, bitch.” 

Finestead replied, “Mike, you sent child services to my house!”

In the second clip from the call Finestead provided to eyeblack, the caller shared his intent to reveal text messages where he accused her of stalking and harassing. “The cops are looking for you as is, Olivia,” the caller says. “The cops are coming for you as is. So all this stalking and harassing you're doing, you're going to jail now.”

The videos show a caller on Finestead’s phone labeled No Caller ID that she repeatedly identified during the conversation as Clevinger, with her face reflecting from the phone. According to the footage Finestead provided to eyeblack, she took the call around 10:47 am CT—roughly an hour before Clevinger took taken the mound to start a game at Citizens Bank Park against the Philadelphia Phillies. eyeblack obtained a Franklin (Tennessee) Police Department that shows Finestead also reported the anonymous call the same day. (eyeblack provided Finestead’s footage to Clevinger’s attorney, Tina Miller and his agent, Anthony LoVerde. Neither answered questions regarding the identity of the caller.)

After the call, Finestead told eyeblack that she informed Mehtab Brar, an MLB investigator who handled her investigation, that Clevinger told her to kill herself “over and over” on the phone call, called child services on her, and that she also filed a police report.

“He called CPS on me I filed another report of harassment last week because the no caller ID calls won't stop. I want this to end,” Finestead texted Brar in screenshots she shared with eyeblack, showing the investigator her iPhone’s thumbnails of her recordings. “He's driving me to a very dark place. This stuff makes people want to die this isn't ok.”

Brar replied with a one-page resource sheet compiled by MLB including numbers to call for help, and asked Finestead to send the recordings. “I'm not sending any of them to you,” replied Finestead. “You failed me You’re [sic] player is repeating over and over for me to kill my self [sic] This is harassment and abuse.” Finestead’s alleged text screenshots do not show Brar responding.⁸

Calls and messages Finestead characterized as threats continued throughout the 2023 season. On August 30th, 2023 at 2:13 am ET ⁹, two weeks after Pinellas County courts granted Clevinger a restraining order against Finestead, she said the pitcher called and texted her again with more threats, including pressuring her to recant her claims that he abused her.

“He was like, ‘I'm coming after [our child],’ Finestead said Clevinger told her. “‘Everything is your fault and I'm gonna show you how.’” She said she hung up on Clevinger, and figured he was reeling from the White Sox placing him on waivers—a procedural move that potentially leads to a team releasing or trading a player. The next day, Finestead said she texted him out of concern for his health, worried he was using drugs. Clevinger told Finestead that her message, which she claims was a response to his call, “could put you in jail” because it violated his new restraining order against her.

When Finestead replied by asking him to commit to a co-parenting agreement, Clevinger replied: “Until you tell the truth publicly nothing will change. I will get the truth out there though. I Promise. And I promise I will get my baby.”

eyeblack asked Miller about Clevinger’s alleged call and provided Finestead’s screenshot of the text exchange, but the pitcher’s attorney did not address specific questions about the conversation.

Amy Kaufman, an advocate for victims of intimate partner violence and survivor of a abusive relationship to baseball journalist Jonah Keri, told eyeblack that she experienced a familiar dynamic to the one Finestead alleged. “I was in a situation in my marriage where I was told that the only way that he would bring the child back to me was if I sent him a text message saying I abused [him]. So, there was a message that I sent to him saying I abused [him].”

After eyeblack reached out in March of this year, MLB also did not answer questions regarding any of Finestead’s allegations of threats or harassments that she said happened after the league closed its investigation on the baseball star. Instead, league spokesperson Michael Teevan defended the process of MLB’s already-completed probe.

“As we announced at the time, the comprehensive investigation included interviews of more than 15 individuals, in addition to Mr. Clevinger and the complainant, as well as a review of available documents, such as thousands of electronic communication records. Mr. Clevinger agreed to submit to evaluations by the joint treatment boards,” referring to a league and union-run drug-treatment program “composed of medical professionals specializing in substance abuse.”

eyeblack also requested interviews with Brar and Moira Weinberg, MLB’s executive vice president of investigations and security, to explain their investigative process. The league declined, citing the “confidentiality provisions” of its policy.

Clevinger’s agent, Anthony LoVerde, leaned on MLB’s investigation that, again, concluded before Finestead alleged his client threatened her throughout the 2023 season. “Michael cooperated fully with [MLB’s] investigation and was cleared of any wrongdoing,” LoVerde told eyeblack.

Miller stressed that Clevinger has not “had contact with Olivia Finestead since 2023” and pointed to MLB’s investigation. Miller did not address eyeblack’s questions about whether Clevinger called Finestead on April 19 or August 30th, or his alleged messages, or whether he was involved with allegedly reporting Finestead to Tennessee DCS.

“He has a 15-year Final Judgment of Injunction for Protection Against Stalking against [Finestead] entered by a Florida court in 2023, and…has recently had to go back to court to seek relief for her continued inexplicable conduct. The order and the accompanying court filings reveal documented evidence of threats she made against his minor children, among countless other violations.”

While MLB (and Clevinger’s attorney) continue to lean on the rigor of its investigation, the league also declined to disclose specifics about what information league investigators received and how they responded.

However, while reporting this story, eyeblack obtained and reviewed a paper trail of court documents, police reports, social media posts, photos, and videos describing Clevinger’s alleged misconduct or violence against women—many of them incidents Finestead insists she told her investigators about before they completed their probe. The claims, if true, appear to show the former star violating MLB’s domestic violence policy, which contains provisions for not only physical assault, but also verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and “economic control.”

The allegations include accusations from women Clevinger dated before Finestead, some of which appear in her alleged direct message conversations with these exes.¹⁰Their claims stretch as far back as 2011, the year Clevinger was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels, and they coincide with every MLB organization he played for before signing with the Pirates in 2026. The claims include:

Finestead said she shared each of these allegations with MLB as well as provided alleged communications with three other women—two of whom she also cited in her 2023 court filing—who told her they had abusive relationships with Clevinger. She said she also told MLB about alleged witnesses, some of whom she referenced in her court filing.

MLB did not answer eyeblack’s questions about the steps the league took to verify specific claims made against Clevinger, but instead cited its policy’s “confidentiality provisions” and the thoroughness of MLB’s probe. Clevinger’s attorney, Tina Miller, did not address eyeblack’s questions regarding any specifics about the alleged incidents, instead pointing to MLB’s investigation.

However, eyeblack obtained some of what Finestead said Clevinger shared with MLB about his ex-fiancée. Again: Clevinger’s legal filings provide a paper trail of his allegations, including texts Finestead sent him that she said MLB used against her during its closed-door probe.

On April 12, one week before Finestead received an anonymous call she attributed to Clevinger, the pitcher filed a petition for a restraining order against his ex-fiancée alleging that Finestead was abusive, not him.

“Since ending my relationship, Ms. Finestead has repeatedly harassed and stalked me,” wrote Clevinger in his court filing. “She has sent me hundreds of unwanted text messages, most threatening and derogatory, which have no legitimate purpose other than to harass me.” Clevinger also said she “physically assaulted” him, destroyed his property and accused her of “verbally abusing me and other members of my family.”

“Hope you get mouth cancer this year,” Finestead wrote on Jan. 9, 2023, a reference to his frequent use of chewing tobacco. In another text Clevinger cited, Finestead told him, “I hope you suffer death befofe [sic] season and if you don’t you’ll get what’s coming for you w/ suspensions and the papers.” The filing cites Finestead’s claim that she could, if she wished, “run you through the mud and stay clean” and that his children “are probably going to be humiliated by everything once it's out because im going to get into great detail your past absue [sic] w/ screenshots [from] multiple women of you cheating and kicking them out of a hosue [sic] twice.”

Clevinger’s filing also references a text Finestead Aug. 26, 2022, after MLB started investigating her abuse claims, that he said proved she was the sole physically abusive partner. “I'm sorry Imk what I can do to help you through the mlb stuff,” Finestead wrote, which she said was in response to MLB starting its probe. “I'll tell them the tranuam [sic] I've been through wn [sic] how I threw coffee at you how I broke the tv and how much I've been abuser and accused you of stuff I did.” 

Finestead says that MLB interrogated her about many of the same messages Clevinger cited in his petition during her investigation, and that she admitted to sending them. “I'm not a perfect victim,” she told eyeblack. “And I've handled it, not well.” Finestead said she feared Clevinger wanted custody of their child—a concern she cited in her court filing seeking a dismissal of the other co-parent’s stalking injunction. She said she lashed out with her string of harassing texts.

She said that when league investigators called a Zoom meeting to review the texts, she admitted to her behavior “to be the bigger person than him” and “hold myself accountable for things I did” during their tumultuous relationship, but that her conduct doesn’t refute Clevinger’s abuse towards her and others.

Anti domestic-violence advocate Amy Kaufman told eyeblack that women who accuse men of abuse are frequently probed by prosecutors and investigators who disapprove of their response to violence.

“Major League Baseball needs to spend more time investigating the perpetrator and less time investigating the victim. Victims come in all shapes and sizes and behavior patterns and personalities,” said Kaufman. “It can’t only be that the only cases [that] get prosecuted or only players get suspended if the victims are perfect."

On March 8, 2026, three days after eyeblack first approached Clevinger for comment about the women who accused him of domestic abuse, the pitcher filed a 136-page update to his stalking petition alleging Finestead violated his 15-year restraining order against her. The texts and screenshots Clevinger cites as evidence include a wide range of messages. Some correspondence show crass insults about his baseball career and slur-laced accusations that he was in a gay relationship with a teammate. Others involve photos of their child and requests for child support, supplemented with screenshots of Finestead’s negative bank balance. And in an alleged exchange from June 1, 2025 that Clevinger called an “explicit extortion threat,” Finestead told the pitcher that a Daily Mail reporter “wanted to write a hit story” and that she would cooperate with the journalist if Clevinger failed to “send money on time.”

Clevinger also claimed that on March 2, 2026, Finestead posted “defamatory statements” about him from @clevingerhasstd ¹⁴, an X account that was created in 2022 but changed its handle the same month its operator started posting about the pitcher. The bio of the account, which the pitcher cited as evidence of defamation, reads “Mike Clevinger is a domestic abuser and child abuser. He is a narcissistic sociopath that needs to hurt his own kids to feel in control. ask for his std results.”

In a statement provided to eyeblack, Finestead accused him of mischaracterizing her contact with him as stalking and dared the pitcher to file a defamation suit “if anything I said [was] untrue.”

“When we were together he’d accuse me of cheating to deflect what he was actually doing. Now I get called a stalker when I ask for child support he refuses to automate on Zelle,” wrote Finestead. She also said that she never “put myself ever in the same vicinity as Mike since I left San Diego” or “filed for child support from a multi millionaire,” which she said she believes “speaks for itself.”

Kaufman reviewed Clevinger’s new court filing listing his evidence Finestead broke the restraining order, but she disagreed with the pitcher’s argument that her alleged misconduct harmed her credibility. “There’s a persistent myth that victims need to be “appropriate” to be believed. In reality, trauma doesn’t look like that,” said Kaufman. “People in abusive dynamics are often dysregulated, fearful, and traumatized. Even contact after a restraining order can reflect fear, pressure, anger, trauma bonding or the realities of co-parenting.”

On March 5, 2023, MLB closed its investigation and allowed Clevinger to play without interruption. By April 18—the same week Finestead accused Clevinger of using blocked calls and burner accounts to threaten her as well as reporting her to Tennessee child services—the pitcher started seeking formal custody of their child. The petition Clevinger filed sought to adjudicate his paternity and custody in Florida, where Clevinger was raising his other children. Finestead argued that neither she nor their child ever lived in that jurisdiction and that it should instead be adjudicated in Kansas, where her mother owns a home. Clevinger also attached an order to dissolve their marriage, even though the two were never married.

Finestead told the judge that Clevinger’s lawsuits intimidated her. “He obviously has the upper hand financially and I don't,” she told the judge. “And it's created a lot of stress for me to pay all my bills and the $15,000 legal fees.”

On February 25, 2025, the judge ruled in Finestead’s favor, arguing that Clevinger’s claim that his child lived in Florida were “absolutely inaccurate” and that the people Clevinger said would be in the child’s life were ”complete and total strangers to this precious child.” The judge also agreed with Finestead’s account of her financial situation, telling the court that she “primarily relies upon the $5,000 a month in child support” the nine-year MLB vet informally provided. “It would be about impossible financially for her to defend·or be involved with this case here,” the judge said.

Finestead said that she settled out of court and that the pitcher reimbursed “under $13,000” for the $15,000 spent to have an attorney on retainer, costs she said that her litigation exceeded. She told eyeblack that while she has become less financially dependent on Clevinger, she can no longer afford her private Christian school and that finding work is still a challenge because of the injunction on her record and because MLB didn’t discipline Clevinger. “When I go on interviews and [Clevinger’s restraining order against me] comes up [in my background check], I’ve had to pull out my recording of Mike harassing me”—the same video she told the judge, the police, and MLB about—”to prove it happened.”

In a text to eyeblack, Finestead wrote that she advises “anyone in my shoes…to always take prevention measures when in a domestic violence relationship to protect yourself and your kids in family court.” She said that “even if it doesn’t feel right at first” taking legal action is “the right thing to do and can save you a lot of headaches.”

Clevinger continues to pitch for the Indianapolis Indians, the Pirates’ Triple-A team. In his last game, the veteran hurler gave up a three run home-run without recording an out. On Thursday, the Pirates announced Clevinger had sprained his right knee and would be out for roughly six weeks. Though currently recovering from the injury, Clevinger continues to compete for a job the next time Pittsburgh’s needs a reinforcement to its big league team, waiting for another chance to continue his career.